This is a set of 3-4 page profiles of one hundred battles listed chronologically. Starting circa 1500 BC with the battle Megiddo and ending at Desert Storm, the book covers a wide range of conflicts and does not leave out any global area. In each profile, the section includes most of the meta information to get introduced (basic statistics) and also to follow up (references). Within the profiles themselves, Davis includes plenty of background and history of the players, including at times adding inset boxes describing associated historical background (e.g. one on the Monroe Doctrine).

The book does have some drawbacks. First, Davis assumes some historical education from the reader related to battles in general. While he is thorough in explaining historical background and personages, he typically does not explain any military battle language, such as the definition of a line, flank, a line getting 'extended', reserves, advances, and more detailed terms not easily guessed by the novice. Descriptions of types of ships or weapons is sometimes missing. Perhaps worst, maps showing landscape and movement are taken from other sources and are often not included. Perhaps just over half the battles have a map, and each one has a different set of symbols, and many maps have no Legend. So the maps themselves, without the legends, have to be guessed at. Finally, there's no sections describing certain techniques that one would find across a number of battles. Replacing some of the historical inset boxes with content about battle techniques that occur frequently would be better drawing the sometimes disjointed book together. Because the book is disjointed and battles have no tie together, the book becomes little more than a collection of Wikipedia 3 page profiles of 100 different battles.

All that said, plucking 100 battle profiles from Wikipedia is a lot of work, and this thick tome is a slow read heavy in history and interesting when taken one battle at a time.

Libro corposo, circa 600 pagine ed una seria diffidenza iniziale. Il ricordo de “la storia fatta con i se” brucia ancora. Invece un viaggio veloce nelle grandi battaglie della storia, partendo dalle guerre dei faraoni per finire con Bush. Un libro che scorre, per carità, non impressiona, ma lascia rudimenti sparsi qua e là. Debole, molto debole sotto il profilo storico militare, è invece realmente gradevole nello spiegare il perché e gli effetti delle grandi battaglie. I grandi della storia ci sono tutti: Giulio Cesare, Napoleone, Rommel, Giovanna D’Arco, Washington, Saladino. E pure i cinesi. Un libro da leggere e ottimo anche per una semplice consultazione. Senza pretendere troppo. ( )

This is a set of 3-4 page profiles of one hundred battles listed chronologically. Starting circa 1500 BC with the battle Megiddo and ending at Desert Storm, the book covers a wide range of conflicts and does not leave out any global area. In each profile, the section includes most of the meta information to get introduced (basic statistics) and also to follow up (references). Within the profiles themselves, Davis includes plenty of background and history of the players, including at times adding inset boxes describing associated historical background (e.g. one on the Monroe Doctrine).

The book does have some drawbacks. First, Davis assumes some historical education from the reader related to battles in general. While he is thorough in explaining historical background and personages, he typically does not explain any military battle language, such as the definition of a line, flank, a line getting 'extended', reserves, advances, and more detailed terms not easily guessed by the novice. Descriptions of types of ships or weapons is sometimes missing. Perhaps worst, maps showing landscape and movement are taken from other sources and are often not included. Perhaps just over half the battles have a map, and each one has a different set of symbols, and many maps have no Legend. So the maps themselves, without the legends, have to be guessed at. Finally, there's no sections describing certain techniques that one would find across a number of battles. Replacing some of the historical inset boxes with content about battle techniques that occur frequently would be better drawing the sometimes disjointed book together. Because the book is disjointed and battles have no tie together, the book becomes little more than a collection of Wikipedia 3 page profiles of 100 different battles.

All that said, plucking 100 battle profiles from Wikipedia is a lot of work, and this thick tome is a slow read heavy in history and interesting when taken one battle at a time. ( )